This book is a comprehensive guide to all aspects of pizza making, for both the amateur pizza maker, and for those who would like to open their own pizzeria. It contains additional information not normally found in a cookbook such as trade secrets, the underlying food science, where to buy ingredients wholesale (e.g., the high gluten flour), and comparisons and instructions for special preparation and baking equipment such as baking pans, baking stones, pizza screens, silicone baking mats, commercial pizza ovens, mixing machines and proof boxes. It also contains my unique collection of over 60 pizza recipes such as barbecue, breakfast, bruschetta, Buffalo, calzone, cheeseburger, cheesesteak, Cuban, deep fried ( Old Forge style ), dessert, Figgy, Foccacia di Recco, Greek, Hawaiian, Indian, Jamaican jerk, mac-n-cheese, marmalade, mashed potato, Middle East, Oktoberfest, pear, Persian, pesto, Portobello, ranch, red, Reuben, roasted red pepper, satay, seafood, shish kabob, Sicilian, Southwest, stromboli, sunnyside, taco, Thanksgiving, tuna melt, vegetable and white, with preparation instructions for stuffed, rolled or open-faced style. All the recipes in this book have been perfected, and all the details have been included so that even the most amateur pizza makers can get professional results. Not only does this book include proven recipes, it provides all the tools necessary to create your own masterpiece. I’ve tried too many recipes that show beautiful pictures of pizzas, but once created are displeasing to the palate. This book is for genuine pizza lovers who are willing to take the time to do-it-right. Creating pizzas can be as much fun as eating them!
Dominick DeAngelis was born and raised in a small working-class town of the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre area of northeastern Pennsylvania. His mother was an Italian immigrant who journeyed to the United States at the age of seventeen. His father is a second generation Italian-American. There is probably no place in the country, or maybe the world, where there are more pizza places per capita than the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre area; on just one street over from where Dominick grew up, there were four pizzerias on the same road within a one mile stretch. They all had a successful business because each pizzeria made their own distinctive style of pizza.
Dominick's obsession with pizza is life long, and the area where he grew up exposed him to a vast array of different types of pizza. For the past twenty-nine years since his childhood, he has taken that experience to develop a collection of his own original recipes, with emphasis on the development of his master dough recipe.
Dominick's formal training is not in the culinary field, but in engineering. However, anyone who knows him will tell you that he is a bona-fide pizza maker. He holds a bachelor's degree from The Pennsylvania State University, a master's degree from Villanova University, and a Ph.D. from The University of Pennsylvania, all in mechanical engineering. He has mechanical design experience from the aerospace, medical, semiconductor and metrology industries, and is also a licensed professional engineer. He resides in the suburban "Main Line" area of Philadelphia with his wife, two daughters and son.
"To do a cookbook on pizza making the-right-way requires a dedication to pizza as intense as a Ph.D. degree in engineering."
Dominick DeAngelis
2011
